Date: Mon, 26 Sep 1994 09:16:16 EDT
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Thought it might be of interest to know of some election results from our
Sept 20 primary; in brief:
* Openly gay candidates for the State House from the 43rd and 36th
districts in Seattle and a district in Tacoma LOST. In the case of the
Seattle districts, liberal strayt "friends of the community" with good
ratings on gay/lesbian issues won (we're talking the Demo primaries here;
each will face a Repub opponent in Nov, but are expected to win as each
of these Seattle districts are heavily Democratic)).
FYI:
The gay candidate in the 36th was supported by the Victory Fund; the one
in the 43rd was not, nor was the one in Tacoma.
* The currently only openly gay man in the Stae House (Cal Anderson,
D-43rd Dist), WON his primary for the State Senate seat from the 43rd.
Of course, he faced no Democratic opposition. Nevertheless, he collected
78% of the total vote, and thus is expected to win handily over his token
homophobic Republican opponent in this heavily gay, heavily Democratic
district, which will leave us with no openly gay persons in the House and
one (Cal) in the Senate (as opposed to one in the House (Cal) and none in
the Senate now).
* In US House district races, Democrats faced stiff and serious
challenges, two of them from right-wing, fundamentalist Xians. In the
3rd Dist, Rep. Jolene Unsoeld won the Demo primary, but will face State
Rep. Linda Smith (Vancouver), a rabid fundamentalist homophobe, who
became the only person in the history of Washington to win a primary (the
Republican side, of course) as a WRITE-IN CANDIDATE, having entered the
race only 10 days before the primary! Watch out for her!
* Randy Tate (R) is another fundamentalist who faced no opposition in
the Repub primary for the 9th District. His Demo opponent, incumbent
Mike Kreidler also faced no opposition. But Tate got 52% of the tatal
vote to Kreidler's 48%. A taste of the replay to come in November, when
winner takes a House seat in DC!
*In the 4th and 5th (?) Districts, incumbent Demos Jay Inslee and Tom
Foley (Speaker of the House) fared not too well! Their seats seem up for
grabs. In fact, the Speaker of the House of REpresentatives of the USA,
in office for XX years, garnered only 35% of the vote against all his
other (4, 5?) Republican opponents. If the Republican primary victor
gets the support of all those who voted Republican, Foley is OUTTA HERE.
As it stands now, Washington State is represented by 8 Democrats and 1
Republican in the US House ( a surprise result fromthe 1992 elections).
Four of those Democrats are facing serious challenges.
* In the US Senate race, Skeletor...um, incumbent Republican Senator
Slade Gorton, frequent ally of Jesse Helms (and this from the state that
elected Patty Murray!!! Quite the schizoid state!) won his primary
easily. Of a dozen or so Demo opponents, six of whom were taken
seriously, Ron Sims came out on top. He gets excellent ratings from the
gay community (and I had the privilege of being on the interview panel
for the gay ratings committee; I should note Sims brought along his
teenage son, too) and the first debate w/Gorton (FATHER OF A GAY SON, can
you believe????) was held tonight.
Warning: editorializing: Slade must go, the hypocrite, but
chances are he'll win, given his huge warchest... Sims, by the way, is
an African-American, and it would be neat to have him and Patty Murray
representing this state...
Moral of the story: REgister to vote, and vote! And work with
your local gay political group of your choice!!!
* Richard Isaac
__*_*___
\* * / Seattle
*\ *
***\**/** rmisaac
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